Over at the Goodbye, Microsoft web site, Brad R. takes Ubuntu to task for abandoning dial-up modem users. Apparently Ubuntu no longer includes the GnomePPP dial-up package in the distribution, without which you can't get online via dial-up. It gets better: if you do have some way to connect, when you download something from the Ubuntu repository, the first thing Ubuntu does is update its 16+ megabyte repository index. Happy waiting! Brad concludes that "Ubuntu is for broadband users only."

Those who [still] use ppp, probably know enough to setup their connections with or without Ubuntu's defaults.

More likely they are running Windows and buying dial-up service from AOL or their home town provider for $10 a month.

AOL prospered in the nineties because it stripped away layer upon layer of complexity for the user. It is a lesson the geek never seems to learn.

Around 74 percent of the nation's adults had Internet access in their homes by 2010, but 6 percent were still relying solely on dial-up Internet connections to go online, according to a Federal Communications Commission report that looked at broadband access.

Just last year, AOL, whose more than 3.5 million dial-up users account for the bulk of the business, added 200,000 new dial-up customers to its roster.

According to the FCC report, 21 percent of dial-up users said broadband services weren't available in their area and 10 percent of rural respondents had only dial-up connections.